Ominous Press: Promo flyers

I've been looking back at a lot of the posts I've written over the last year and was somewhat alarmed to note that most of the posts are to do with Bart Sears items I have purchased over the internet. There has been very little content dealing with other areas of collecting Bart's work.

So, now that I don't have a constant stream of packages coming through the mailbox, I though it an oppurtune time to delve into my Bart Sears boxes and see if I can't put together a more cojent selection of items to show you all.

So here's what I found.

Back in those glorious and much missed Ominous Press days, the comics industry was going through something of a boom, an albeit unsustainable boom, but a boom nonetheless. Companies seemed to have an ocean of cash to throw into promotional material of all sorts and sizes. POGs, trading cards, stickers, posters, action figures and all manner of things could be easily found.

Ominous Press was no different. Although only 3 actual comics were produced for the company, 2 posters, a postcard, bi-fold and tri-fold binders, a mini-comic and 5 promo flyers also got made.

I'll be dealing with each individual item at a later stage, but I wanted to show you the 5 promo flyers today.

So here they are-

I'll do this chronologically by comic, so first up is the 'It Begins' flyer. The main image of Mael and Auoro appears in a few places, there was even a black & white print produced of it. The mocked-up Wizard cover at the bottom is entirely fictional, as no OP characters ever made it to a Wizard cover, though the closest they got was the inside cover.

The main image is an interesting piece in that it was both pencilled and inked by Bart himself, whilst the colouring was created by Wes Merritt, who has since gone on to be a very accomplished watercolour artist. If you're interested, you can see his website here.

Next up is the promo flyer for 'Mael's Rage.' I believe this image was created solely for advertising purposes, as it does not appear anywhere else but in adverts. This piece was inked by Andy Smith, but I'm not sure who coloured it.

Then we have an interesting one indeed, here we have both 'Mael's Rage' and 'Death of Pheros' advertised on the same flyer. The same image for the 'Mael's Rage' flyer is used here, and the Pheros image is both the same as the fictional Wizard cover from the 'It Begins' flyer, as well as the below 'Death of Pheros' flyer too.

And here's the 'Death of Pheros' flyer in all of it's glory. This is another piece that was both pencilled and inked by Bart, with colours by Brad Perkins. I think this is a very interesting piece of artwork, and a great example of Bart's storytelling ability. There are several clues as to who Pheros' killer is, and it leaves the question of what is happening to Mael and Auoro? The tagline that reads 'You've never seen a hero die... UNTIL NOW,' is true to it's word. Although the comic never made it into the public domain, I've read the script and seen the artwork produced for it (which is mostly in rough layouts), and can say that it would have been one of the outright coolest comics ever, in my opinion. The fight scenes are epic and the plot is tight and emotive. It is one of my greatest regrets that this comic never came to fruition.

Next up is the 'Omen' flyer. This, again, is a comic that never came out, but once more, I've read the script and it is pretty spectacular, as the Ominous Press Universe really opens out and the possibilities seem endless. I've always loved how the comic-specific fonts were used on this flyer, even the word 'HERO,' which is taken from Pheros' logo, minus the P and the S. I also love the image of Mael, perhaps because I managed to buy it off Bart many years ago. As far as I know, this is the only place this image of Mael is used.

Lastly, we have the generic OP promo flyer, which utilizes the OP Poster 2 artwork. I've always referred to this piece as Poster 2, whereas Poster 1 is the one with Mael at one end, Dramaurg at the other. I'm not sure which piece was produced first, or the release order, but I'm pretty sure I've got it right!

I'm not entirely sure how these promo flyers were distributed, but there does exist an Ominous Press press kit, which contains a title synopsis and a few other things, in a nice grey envelope with a cool OP sticker on it. I imagine that some of the flyers were also included in the press kit. Bart?

Anyway, it has been fun looking at these nifty little items (they're not that 'little' actually, they are all printed on standard US Letter size paper). I should be diving into the old Bart Sears boxes over the coming weekend, so come see what else I can find soon!

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #8

Why, its another batch of comics from my favourite online comic emporium, Mile High Comics!
In keeping with my current desire to track down some loose ends by purchasing possible sources of Bart Sears work, this shipment was another one of those times when there were unfortunately more misses than hits.

As a for instance, you may recall that I recently purchased several issues of Image Comics Prophet Vol. 1, to no avail. Well, I went back to the well and ordered the first four issues of Volume 2, in the hope that the elusive Prophet pin-up might appear in one of them. And that's strike 2! But fear not, the well is not dry yet. There is still the Prophet TPB to account for, which I'll try and get my hands on soon.

Another leap into the unknown (last metaphor, I promise) was the Wizard Special Edition from back in 1992.



This is another item I owned once upon a time, but lost it or turfed it along the way somewhere. Apart from the cool fold-out cover, I vaguely recalled Bart being mentioned in it, and wouldn't you know?

It felt good to win one for a change.

I also picked up a copy of the Zoom Suit #2 Sketch Edition.

As you can see on the cover, it is limited to 1500 copies, and I'm glad to finally own one of those. But that's not all there is to this cover -

If you look closely, there's a randomly placed 'S' just hovering there.
I thought it was funny.

I also got my hands on the three Will To Power covers Bart did. I already own these issues, but they need to be re-laminated and will get that treatment soon.

These covers are interesting in a few ways.

Firstly, Bart has signed each cover as 'SEARSS' -

Bart has often played around with his Signature, but I'm yet to find out why he signed these ones with two S's at the end. (Bart?) NOTE: Bart has since informed me that "I used the 'double S' to denote work that was Sears Studio work." Thanks Bart.

Secondly, Bart's original art for the second cover featured the character 'X' in the bottom right of the page, but was removed by the time the issue was printed. Again, I'm not sure why.

But definitely the pick of this particular litter is this rather impressive item -

I must confess to not knowing about this item until I saw it on Mile High Comics a few weeks ago, which is ridiculous, really, I mean, how the HELL did I not know about the existence of this Ominous Press comic? Appauling...
It has since been added to the Bart Sears Checklist, which has stretched out to 280 individual comics now.

So what's different about this 'Limited Edition' as opposed to the regular edition? Well, apart from it saying 'Wizard Limited Edition 1995' on the cover in stamped gold... nothing at all. Still, that's the sort of item that I simply had to own, no question about it.

I've got another Mile High Comics shipment arriving next week (hopefully) and I'll post more then.

Postcards from Scotland

I was in Scotland last week, thanks to my wife giving me the trip as a birthday present. As I was planning what to bring with me (binoculars, etc.), I had the genius idea that I should take along a few small Bart Sears items and get my picture taken holding them in front of famous places. Genius, I tell you!


So here they are -

This first one is taken on the waters of the mighty Loch Ness, home of the beastie himself. I'm holding a signed and laminated Brute Postcard, a favourite of mine because I own the original sketch and final art for it.

This second photo shows me standing in front of the imposing Edinburgh Castle holding a copy of the B&B Infinity mini-comic, another favourite of mine because I own so many of the original art pages from that comic, tee-hee.